1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to wireless communications. More particularly, this invention relates to establishing, operating, and maintaining self-configuring wireless mesh networks.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional wireless communications are undergoing very rapid growth, a growth that has necessitated standardizing communications protocols. A desirable feature as wireless networks become larger and more complex is to enable self-configuring wireless mesh networks that automatically configure mesh-capable wireless clients to form an extended service set (ESS) that provides data communications both within the mesh itself and externally through wired networks.
Wireless communications have distinct advantages in that they can be deployed very rapidly with little or no infrastructure support. For example, a standardized self-configuring wireless mesh network could enable mobile clients to enter and join the wireless mesh and to benefit from data communications while moving within the mesh.
Unfortunately, self-configuring mesh networks have practical implementation problems due to their dynamic nature. For example, a given self-configuring mesh network may expand, adding clients, such that it would overburden the mesh's ability to service the mesh clients. Simply keeping track of the clients in a wireless mesh network may become very difficult or impossible to do. Furthermore, a protocol for self-configuring mesh clients to select paths in multi-hop mesh topologies may be needed, including support for broadcast, multicast, and unicast traffic. While message routing issues are always of concern in data communications, because wireless networks have lower bandwidth than wired networks, selecting optimal routing paths is particularly important in wireless mesh networks.
Accordingly, mechanisms are needed to enable mesh clients to leave and to join the mesh network and communicate mesh topology information within the mesh network. Furthermore, mechanisms are needed to determine efficient routing paths based on the mesh topology information.